1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for flaring the ends of tubing and more particularly, to powered apparatus for flaring the ends of plastic tubing of the type used in residential water plumbing and the like.
2. Prior Art
In the art of tube flaring particularly in residential plumbing applications, it has been a common expedient to use hand held flaring tools in which a die or dies are provided to hold the tubing to be flared and a flaring cone is mounted to a threaded member supported coaxially in front of the end of the tube to be flared so that by rotating the threaded member in the correspondingly threaded support bracket, the end of the tube will be pushed outwardly to be flared at the desired angle. These flaring devices were developed particularly for use in flaring copper or other metal tubing which can be deformed to the desired position merely by the application of pressure to remold the shape of the end of the tube.
Such hand held flaring tools were sufficiently efficient for the uses for which they were intended since plumbers generally would measure and cut the necessary length of tubing on location, just prior to installing each individual piece of tubing and, thus, it was not necessary to have a highly efficient mass-producing flaring tool which could be used to flare pieces of tubing in advance of their immediate use.
Hand held tools are of course much more portable and may be carried in the tool box of the plumber rather than requiring special transport to the individual job sight as would be necessary in a larger, more fully automated, flaring device. However, with the advent of modular residential homes, mobile homes and the like, which could utilize precut and preformed lengths of tubing, it became advantageous to consider a more automated version of the prior art hand held tools.
In addition, the use of certain types of plastic tubing in place of copper and other metal tubing has increased substantially due to the relative cost savings. Such plastic tubing made, for example, of polybutylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl, and other similar plastic materials which are thermoplastic in nature and contain a memory unless certain pressure and temperature conditions are met which cause the material to become deformable so that it will retain its new shape, has created additional problems in the tube flaring art since conventional tools are not readily adaptable to the reforming of such plastic tubing.
Applicant himself has developed a special flaring tool which is believed to overcome the difficulties associated with the prior art devices for flaring plastic tubing of the nature mentioned above. This device is disclosed in applicant's copending United States patent application Ser. No. 607,225. This device, however, is in the form of a hand held tool utilizing a special flaring head and does not, therefore, provide a more automated means of flaring such plastic tubing than would prior art tools utilized in flaring copper or other metal tubings.